Senate panel investigates DOJ's election prep

LAURIE KELLMAN

Keshia Anderson took her 7-year-old son along when she voted in Virginia's Democratic presidential primary. He got an eyeful, she recalled: scant parking, hundreds standing in line and news that there were no more Democratic ballots.

Then came a vision straight out of the painful past: a separate line of whites flowing past hundreds of blacks to vote, Anderson said.

"Shocked and frustrated, I asked, 'Why?'" Anderson, who is black, told the Senate Judiciary Committee at a hearing Tuesday on Justice Department preparations for the Nov. 4 election.

Anderson said a poll worker told her that while the Democratic ballots were gone, the precinct still had plenty of Republican ones. The few whites waiting to vote were Republicans, so they moved ahead of the black voters, she said.

Dozens of people in Anderson's line, out of time or just angry, left without voting, she said. For those who remained, poll workers handed out scraps of paper for them to write down their votes and assured them they would count, Anderson said.

They were wrong. The State Board of Elections later invalidated 299 ballots cast on blank paper, including Anderson's.

"I want to try to ensure that what happened to me and so many others in Chesterfield County does not happen again," Anderson, a teacher, told the panel.

Chesterfield County officials have denied any voter intimidation and blamed poor planning and the record voter turnout for what happened during the Feb. 12 primary.

Anderson's experience served as an election season reminder that voting problems and racial tension have survived landmark laws designed to ease them.

Majority Democrats said they invited Anderson to testify to help ensure that the Justice Department's Civil Rights and Criminal divisions are taking action to keep the voting process fair and accurate.

Justice officials preemptively said they were.

On Monday, agency officials said they would send election monitors around the country to help ensure access to the polls for as many people as possible, including non-English speakers. But they also acknowledged the department's limited power to enforce election laws.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey and other Justice officials met Monday with about 42 representatives from voter access watchdogs, hoping to assure them that having a smooth election on Nov. 4 is a priority.

Grace Chung Becker, the acting assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division, told the committee the Justice Department is "doing everything within our authority to ensure that this election is fair and run as smoothly as possible."

In Virginia, what happened in Chesterfield County didn't affect the primary's outcome; Barack Obama overwhelmingly beat Hillary Rodham Clinton. But the state's Civil War roots and robust black population _ a fifth of the state _ make racial matters in government especially sensitive.

The county is less than 20 miles from the former Confederate capital in Richmond. The electorate has come far enough since then to become the first state to elect a black governor, Democrat L. Douglas Wilder, in 1989.

The law firm of Dewey and LeBoef filed a civil-rights complaint with the Justice Department on behalf of Anderson and other voters who were affected, claiming the county's actions caused delays and other difficulties that violated the Voting Rights Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.